On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.

On Being Asked for a War Poem I think it better that in times like these A poet keep his mouth shut, for in truth We have no gift to set a statesman right; He has had enough of meddling who can please A young girl in the indolence of her youth, Or an old […]

“Impenetrability! That’s what I say!” “Would you tell me, please,” said Alice “what that means?” “Now you talk like a reasonable child,” said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. “I meant by ‘impenetrability’ that we’ve had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you’d mention what you mean to do […]

A mosquito was heard to complain A mosquito was heard to complain That a chemist had poisoned his brain The cause of his sorrow Was paradichloro Diphenyltrichloroethane.

Mathematics is not a careful march down a well-cleared highway, but a journey into a strange wilderness, where the explorers often get lost. Rigour should be a signal to the historian that the maps have been made, and the real explorers have gone elsewhere.

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.

Words … are innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, defining that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos… They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little or make a poem which children will […]